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Bringing you more control over your Skype status

We have heard your feedback on the Skype 8 Presence model. We have seen two major feedback themes emerge – (a) My contacts don’t see me as Active/Online even though I am (b) Give me more control on my presence. We are actively
working on addressing them and would love your feedback on some of the changes we are planning.

My contacts don’t see me as Active even though I am

This by far has been the biggest feedback. We are addressing it immediately. We are currently testing the change in
Skype Insiders and hope to roll it out to everyone shortly. Earlier, we marked you Inactive when you minimized the app. Going forward, your contacts will see you as
Active if the Skype app is running on your computer and you are either using the mouse or the keyboard. This change also aligns us with the Skype 7 behavior you are familiar with.

Give me more control on my presence

How we share our availability and intent to communicate with others has evolved significantly over time, thanks to the ‘always on’ world we have come to live in where each of us is connected 24X7 through multiple devices. The simplified
Skype 8 Presence model was a step in that direction. Your feedback makes it clear that there are times when you would like more control on how your presence is represented in the Skype ecosystem.

We spent a lot of time learning from users what aspects of the current model worked or did not work too well. The result is a streamlined model with four states – Active, Recently Active, Away and Not Active. The table below summarizes
what each state means, how it’s represented, and how you would transition among these states.

If your status is

Active

Recently Active

Away

Not Active

Contacts will see you as

Active Now

Last active [n] mins ago

Last active [n] hrs | days ago

Last active [n] mins | hrs | days ago

It means

You are in the app. On Desktop: you have the app running in the background and are either using mouse or keyboard

You were active less than an hour ago

You were active more than an hour ago

You are signed out, not reachable or have not been active for an extended period

Can you set the status

Yes

No

Yes

No

If you are wondering where are ‘Invisible’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’, we have you covered.

Hide my Presence – You will be able to turn off your presence from Settings. Once you turn off your presence, you will be marked Not Active. We want to foster an environment of trust and openness. So, if you hide
your presence, you will not be able to see others’ presence.

Quiet Mode – Many users shared that they found the Do Not Disturb status rude and preferred to sign out to minimize interruptions. We plan to have a new feature that we believe is a subtler but better way to handle
unwanted interruptions. Quiet mode will silence all incoming messages and calls. If you would like to let your contacts know that you will not be taking calls or responding to messages, you can select the ‘Do not Disturb’ custom status. Just like before,
you will have the flexibility to decide if you want to be alerted to incoming calls or messages.

When these states are just not enough -
Many of us use the status message in addition to the presence states to share more about our availability. We plan to make status messages an integral part of your presence on Skype so that your contacts will easily know if you are unreachable because you are
on a vacation or should expect a delay in response as you are attending a conference. We plan to make these status messages intelligent in future so that you don’t have to remember to remove an old status message.

Figure 1. Select from a pre-defined list of statuses

Figure 2.Your status message is visible across the app

Some of you mayhave contacts who are still running Skype 7. This is how the states will map

If you are Active they will see you as Online.

If you are Recently Active or Away they will see you as Away.

If you are Not Active they will see you as Offline.

We believe our new model and controls will make it easier for you to manage the way you connect with the world through Skype. We look forward to hearing from you.

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The buggy presence status indication implemented in Skype 8 was my main objection against using this application. How it was working was inconsistent and confusing.

The new model is a significant step forward to reduce this inconsistency and confusion.

However, the "Hide my Presence" option is not what one would expect.

" We want to foster an environment of trust and openness. So, if you hide your presence, you will not be able to see others’ presence."

Why when in this mode (essentially the same as Invisible) we should not be able to see the other users presence status? This should still work like in Skype 7.X version. Appearing Offline to your contacts, but being actually fully Online.
I don't see any problem with trust and openness when using the old Invisible option.

Is it true that this version of Skype that you are discussing is not available on ANY Windows device?! Are their plans to get it out for those of us that wish to stay exclusively on Microsoft hardware? I am stunned by this if it is true.

Thanks for sharing your feedback and for being an active member of the Skype community. Can you please help me understand why would you want to set Not Active/Offline status? Understanding your use case will help us make the model better.

Thanks Michael for your feedback and for being a member of the Skype community. Could you please help me understand your need for changing the time? Would you like Away to kick in earlier or later and is that something you would like to change on a regular
basis.

Thanks for sharing your feedback and for being an active member of the Skype community. Can you please help me understand why would you want to set Not Active/Offline status? Understanding your use case will help us make the model better.

Yes. I use Offline now for when I'm leaving for an extended period of time, say, overnight, but the PC is going to be on for whatever reason. I do this so my contacts have no ambiguity for any period of time that I'm just "Away," or worse, that I'm still
there (the change of status is immediate)--and because it's easy to do via the tray icon. It's also much easier/faster than closing, and then later restarting, Skype. It's also somewhat easier/faster than signing out of Skype, and then later signing into it,
especially since the means to do that isn't in the tray icon.

BTW, the version of new Skype that I would ever use beyond testing--the Win10 app version, since it avoids the Electron baggage (embedded Chrome) of Skype 8--doesn't even have a tray icon and may never, since Win10 apps in general don't support such sophistication.